Often when Russia does something that appears foolish to the west, it's because it is for internal propaganda purposes. The west is not the intended audience.
Somewhat off-topic, but this reminds me of an old bit about Niklaus Wirth[0][1]:
Whereas Europeans generally pronounce his name the right way ('Nick-louse
Veert'), Americans invariably mangle it into 'Nickel's Worth.' This is to say
that Europeans call him by name, but Americans call him by value.
>Did you mean to post this elsewhere? This is really non sequitur.
No. I thought of it because Russia fined Google 2*10^36 Rubles. While it falls far short of a Googol (10^100), it's still a ridiculously large number and, as such, it made me think of that anecdote about Niklaus Wirth.
As in: Russia calls Google by value rather than by name. ha ha ha.
>something is wrong with one of their numbers, because 2 undecillion rubles is roughly 21 decillion USD, not 2.5 decillion USD
Given that the world GDP is just north of USD$100x10^12, and Russia fined Google ~USD$2x10^33, does it really matter as it's orders of magnitude greater than the output of the world?
Makes me think of Putin as Doctor Evil[0] with his pinky in his mouth saying "two undecillion Rubles!"
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[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 42.4 ms ] threadEither way it is noise used to serve propaganda
[1] In looking this up, I discovered that Wirth passed away on 1 January this year. You will be missed, sir!
Edit: Fixed typo.
No. I thought of it because Russia fined Google 2*10^36 Rubles. While it falls far short of a Googol (10^100), it's still a ridiculously large number and, as such, it made me think of that anecdote about Niklaus Wirth.
As in: Russia calls Google by value rather than by name. ha ha ha.
Given that the world GDP is just north of USD$100x10^12, and Russia fined Google ~USD$2x10^33, does it really matter as it's orders of magnitude greater than the output of the world?
Makes me think of Putin as Doctor Evil[0] with his pinky in his mouth saying "two undecillion Rubles!"
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dr._Evil